Expanding the Field
The information written about me in the Diary was simple. An orphan whose parents had died in an accident during an early childhood I couldn't even remember. My only blood relative, my aunt Kim Seon-a, had taken me in and raised me. Though I hadn't known it at the time, the circumstances suggested that Kim Arin had brutally eliminated every girl who came near me during my school years, forcing me to live as the school's official outcast. Thanks to that, my self-esteem had plummeted and I'd developed social anxiety. As an added bonus, the relentless gaslighting from both Kim Seon-a and Kim Arin had given me a full-blown phobia of women, leading me to hole up in my room for an entire year.
"The silver lining is that I must have been planning to attend college at some point. I got accepted into a decent university and even applied for a leave of absence."
The downside was that the school was close to home, so declaring myself a runaway ninja in order to live alone or in a dorm was impossible. Still...
"At least I can expand my field of movement."
In game terms, it was called a field. More accurately, it referred to locations and settings.
"I need to expand my field to meet and capture other heroines."
If I went to the library, I'd encounter studious heroines or the librarian teacher type. If I headed to the gym or the athletic field, I'd run into energetic, athletic heroines. In dating sims, there weren't just choices to raise affection—there were also choices to expand your field. Of course, picking the field-expansion option meant you couldn't focus on the heroines right in front of you, but the advantage was that it increased the variety of heroines you'd meet later and unlocked special events.
"And at the same time, I can get away from that psycho little sister who runs around with a goddamn spike and that aunt who keeps trying to seduce her nephew with zero shame!"
For now, I'd somehow managed to knock Kim Arin out with a kiss to the lips and had resisted the temptations of Kim Seon-a, whose seductive aura could turn any man into a drooling mess just by looking at her. But staying in a house with two women who were constantly eyeing me like prey was asking for disaster. I had no idea when or how I'd end up getting assaulted.
"Thanks to that, I ended up making some weird promises to both Kim Arin and Kim Seon-a... but if I want to expand my field and find other heroines, I don't have a choice."
About an hour and a half ago. When I'd declared that I was going to start college life, Kim Arin had immediately gone full yandere mode, her eyes losing focus as she screamed, 'I'm going to go black! Kyaaaa!' Meanwhile, Kim Seon-a had muttered something about, 'This won't do. I need to make a baby with my nephew today...' turning the whole situation into some kind of incestuous erotica. The card I'd played to persuade them both was this:
"A social anxiety patient who's been shut in for a year. My social rehabilitation treatment and weekend escort pass."
It sounded reasonable on the surface, but in reality it was basically a weekend date ticket soaked in both women's desires. Saturdays would be with Kim Arin, and Sundays with Kim Seon-a...
"I-I'm so anxious..."
Anxious didn't even begin to cover it. Kim Arin was the kind of crazy psychopath who, the moment I accidentally said something in panic, would interpret it as love and start stabbing the air with her spike while screaming, 'Oppa loves me too, right? Huh? You're not going to say you don't, are you?' And Kim Seon-a... well.
Reason: Wait, what? Look at this bastard?!
Libido: Hehe... You were saying 'yamete, yamete' with your mouth, but your body was being so honest♡ You really liked Mommy's big, rough rod (it's a finger, by the way), didn't you?
Survival Instinct: Idiot. Idiot. Saying it twice because it's important lol. What the hell are you talking about? If you're a man who's completed his military service, shouldn't you be able to pitch a Type-B tent just from imagination?
'No, the changed body doesn't pitch a Type-B tent—it's a goddamn 24-person marquee size?!'
I'd vaguely noticed it during my half-completed second puberty that morning, but now that I'd reached my final form (?), it was legitimately the size of a third leg. And yet this body...? No wonder the women in the house refused to leave me alone. If this body were a woman, it'd be the kind with a face like a pure, innocent fairy beauty but with breasts so massive they defied physics and a cola-bottle waist that screamed pure seduction.
"Anyway, enough rambling. The conclusion is that I've gained some freedom of movement, right?"
It was around Friday lunchtime now. Kim Seon-a, who worked, had left for the office, and Kim Arin, the freshman, had whined that she could skip orientation since she was starting college life with her oppa. But Kim Seon-a, who would never leave the two of us alone together, had forcibly dragged her out.
"In short, I'm free until this afternoon!"
It was the perfect time—not just for heroines, but to understand the setting of this world. A soft chime rang out.
The chapter guide text that had vanished from my sight after I read the Diary in Chapter 0, and had disappeared again when I left my room in Chapter 1.
"It's semi-transparent and stays at the bottom of my vision so it doesn't interfere with daily life, but the fact that it won't disappear this time must mean I need to properly understand or experience this gender-reversed world, right?"
It wasn't uncomfortable, but the chapter text was incredibly distracting. On top of that, the warning explicitly stated that this world differed from the common sense I knew, so it seemed necessary to figure it out.
"There are still so many things I don't know. For starters, how about stopping by the nearest convenience store?"
Maybe it was because I'd felt my life threatened multiple times since morning.
"I could really go for a cola to clean out my stomach!"
One can of cola had never felt so desperately necessary. And at that moment, I had no idea what those two warnings truly meant.
(※Warning. Even characters who are not capturable heroines can still affect gameplay.)
(※Warning. This world operates on principles different from the common sense you know. Exercise extreme caution in every action.)
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Beep!
"Uh... that comes to 17,500 won total. Sir, this is a 1+1 item—"
"Ah, whatever, just hurry up and ring it up! ...Looking all gloomy like that, acting like you want to talk to a man. Disgusting."
"Y-yes? W-what do you—"
"Ugh... Just give me my stuff already!"
Thud!
The male customer snatched the items she'd bagged with clear irritation and stormed out.
'Fuck fuck fuck fuck... I wouldn't touch an old bastard like you even if you begged—well, I would if you offered, but still... ugh...'
Worried that her voice might be picked up by the CCTV inside the store, she swallowed her curses internally instead of voicing them. Thirty years old. She'd graduated from a community college but was now just a typical unemployed Korean part-timer working at a convenience store.
'No matter how much of a part-timer I am, isn't the authority men have these days way too high? No wonder people call them "Goslachi"!'
Just looking at the male customer who'd hurled baseless accusations and humiliated her was proof enough. In South Korea—no, across the entire world—women were suffering from the severe Gender Ratio Imbalance.
'Women serve in the military. Women do all the heavy labor. But because men are fewer in number, they get every possible privilege. They get into big corporations easily, and if they shake their ass once at some 586-generation auntie, they get promoted. Their dicks are basically peerages at this point... Argh! The more I think about it, the angrier I get?!'
The deeper her thoughts went, the more furious she became. But what made her even angrier was—
'Even so... I still want to date one of those kimchi men...'
A male-to-female ratio of 1:2. One man meant two women. If the ratio had been 1:99 or even 1:20, she could have at least given up, saying it was impossible. But because it was awkwardly stuck at 1:2, society had secretly instilled the perception that any woman without a partner was a failure in life.
'I want one too! Even if he's ugly, even if he's a radical feminist man-hater, I just want to date a man!!'
She was trembling with rage, unaware that she'd accidentally let some of her curses slip out loud, when—
"E-excuse me."
A voice slipped into her ear. It was a beautiful male voice, like a heavenly harmony.
"C-customer?!"
Oh no. She'd been so absorbed in her friends' messages that she hadn't even noticed a customer had entered. And judging by the voice, it was a young male customer. Even when she served them normally, they often mocked her gloomy appearance with things like 'Your boyfriend's over there lol' or 'What is this guy even saying?' Yet here she was, getting flustered in front of one.
"I-I'm so sorry, sir! What were you— what were you looking for—"
She hurriedly apologized, lifting her eyes from her smartphone and looking toward the customer in front of her, when—
"I'm not really looking for anything specific. You just looked like you were having a hard time, so I thought you might like this. It's a 1+1, so please have one~ Oh, and there was only one can left on the shelf. Do you have more in the back? I'd like to pay for it too, hehe~"
Despite her earlier complaints about how cold it still was at the end of February and her request to turn the heater up, the boss lady had completely ignored her. But the moment young male customers said, 'It's a bit chilly in this store,' she would immediately crank the heater to maximum. Thanks to that warm breeze, his glossy black hair fluttered beautifully. And then there was that fairy-like face that made her wonder why such beauty would be hidden behind hair. Only after losing herself in his appearance did she notice the long, elegant legs stretching out beneath the thick padding.
'An angel... An angel has descended!'
She had no idea why he was wearing thick padding on top but shorts on the bottom, but that wasn't what mattered.
'That smile. This man... he [smiled] at me!'
The fact that an angel had [smiled] at her was what mattered.